In the six years since tandem UBC — a partner-based conversational language program — launched at the University of British Columbia, its directors never expected to see it become the largest “tandem” style program in the world.

Students at UBC participate in a language exchange offered by tandem UBC, using an innovative learning model in which partners are paired by an online algorithm and converse with each other in their own languages | Photo: UBC tandem Language Learning Program

Focused on community-building and learning other languages in a small group setting, ‘profound’ new language exchange set to expand in New Year.

Vancouver language exchange partners Ayla Harker, a Canadian, and Asma Hussein, who is Syrian, took part in Language Partners B.C.'s Arabic-English exchange earlier this year. According to the program's founder Mary Leighton, "neither spoke any of the other language when they started." | Photo by Norma Ibarra

Most language learners today are no strangers to phrasebooks, immersion programs, or Rosetta Stone, but how about using First Nations language learning apps, or watching ultrasound imagery to speak Cantonese, or adopting an Arabic conversation partner?

In the wake of events in England and around the world, where more doors seem to be closing than opening, here, however small, is another kind of story. To those who would consider themselves hard-eyed realists, who feel the need for more doors, it’s laughably naive. The story’s name is Mary Leighton.

One sunny afternoon, language learners took their conversation outside.

Picture women from Syria, Egypt, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, and the United States sitting on carpeted ground together, and laughing over plates of dates, melon, and cake. This was the scene on Tuesday April 14 as the participants of the an Arabic-English language exchange program stayed late at Ajyal Centre in Vancouver to celebrate Iftar–the breaking of fasting during the Islamic month of Ramadan–and to mark the successful completion of the first iteration of this new program.

Neighbours Learning Together, an Arabic-English language exchange program designed to support Syrian refugees in Vancouver, is off to a great start.